Standoff
by Janus2
Summary: Set after season 5 of Andromeda. Sent to find the remains of the Magog the Andromeda and her task force are forced to follow a damaged High Guard ship into the Route of Ages, but did the Abyss set up just one universe for chaos. As the Ori move to attack Earth their support is removed forcing a risk-all situation.
1. Promotion

**A/N: Apologies, but for the present time my alternate version of Stargate Atlantis is on hold as I'm having trouble writing it. In the meantime here's something which has been on my mind for a while now.**

* * *

"_The Universe is a dangerous place. But in our future my crew and I fight to make it safe. I am Dylan Hunt, Captain of the Andromeda Ascendant, and these are our adventures._"

The _Andromeda Ascendant _was surrounded by the commonwealth fleet in orbit of Tarn-Vedra, two of the so called Triumvir cruisers were at the centre of the fleet beside the _Andromeda, _deep inside the _Andromeda _Dylan sat at his desk looking up at Tri-Lorn and Tri-Laurent.

"The answer was no two years ago, and it's still no." Dylan drew in a breath. "I have no desire to run for the position of triumvir; I'm a soldier not a position."

Tri-Laurent didn't look pleased with the outcome but Tri-Lorn smiled.

"Listen _Captain, _this isn't about what you want. The Nietzscheans may have stood down and your display above Tarazed proved that the Commonwealth was far from weak and with the Pyrians help the Magog world ship has been destroyed, but we've got reason to believe that a number of satellite ships were able to escape the destruction. Even without the Abyss guiding them they're still a massive threat to the rest of the known worlds-"

Whatever Tri-Laurent planned to say was cut off when Tri-Lorn intervened.

"Which is why the people will feel a lot safer with the first complete High Guard battle group under the command of _Admiral _Dylan Hunt."

Tri-Lorn reached into his pocket and supplied a fresh rank pin denoting his promotion.

"Congratulations Admiral."

"What are you doing Tri-Lorn? We need Hunt to figure head the Commonwealth." Tri-Laurent clearly felt unsecure in his position even with the renewed peace.

"Exactly, Hunt's a military officer, one of the best, and the whole three galaxies knows it." Lorn was defending his actions to his fellow Triumvir.

"Don't I have a say?" Dylan looked up at his two superiors after studying the new rank pins.

"No, you're a soldier, you follow orders, and I know you'll do the right thing." Tri-Lorn gestured to the door. "Tri-Laurent, I believe we have other matters to attend to."

Tri-Laurent left while Tri-Lorn sat down.

"Admiral, you have to understand that the first High Guard battle group is a work in progress. It will obviously include you flagship the _Andromeda_ along with four _Siege Perilous _class destroyers currently under the command of Captain Ryan on the _Wrath of Achilles._ There will also be two Drop ship carriers with full lancer contingents. There are also three _Eternal Vigilance _class scout ships."

Dylan looked up again still shocked into silence.

"Captain Ryan has my orders for your fleet, the _Achilles _will arrive in five hours, till we meet again Captain."

This time Tri-Lorn did leave, heading out of Dylan's office to be escorted by two lancers at station to his transport.

"Andromeda?" Dylan asked, unsure as to what had just happened.

"_Here Admiral," _Andromeda's core AI appeared onscreen behind Dylan. _"Congratulations."_

Dylan smiled.

"Can you hear anything?"

"_No Admiral. I hear nothing, to what to you refer?"_

"I'm trying to hear the other shoe drop." Dylan smiled at the generated image of his friend. "Please call Trance to my office, oh and don't tell anyone about the promotion, assemble the command crew after my meeting with Trance."

"_Aye, Admiral."_

Andromeda disappeared from the screen to be replaced by the seal of the Commonwealth.

* * *

"_Harper?_" Rommie ducked her head around the door to the darkened observation deck to see her chief engineer Seamus Harper surrounded by empty bottles of alcoholic drinks.

"Here _Rom-doll, _the Harper is in," Harper's speech was completely slurred, he was clearly drunk.

"Harper, you're inebriated," Rommie sat down beside him.

"Yeah well it's only fair," Harper said bitterly as his head fell onto Rommie's shoulder.

Rommie moved one of her hands to rustle Harper's hair.

"What do you mean?"

Harper closed his eyes sucking in a breath of air as a tear made its way down his face.

"It's just that, everyone has a home Rommie, even Dylan, Tarn-Vedra's been restored meanwhile Earth. Good old Terra's gone, blown up by the Nietzscheans, my home gone, and you know what's worse I can't even hate Dylan. No matter how much I want to blame him, I know that he's a good man and he'd do anything to have saved it."

Rommie moved her head to rest on Harper.

"You're not the only one to have been born on Earth Seamus; I was born at the Newport News orbital shipyards." Rommie traced Harper's hair line with her hand massaging his scalp. "And you're wrong, you do have a home Harper, so long as I can still think and reason this will be your home. You are _home_, and no matter what we fix each other remember."

Rommie held him tighter as the last walls broke down and Harper told her everything about him.

* * *

Rhade stood at the centre of _Andromeda's _command deck looking out at the Commonwealth.

"This is Commander Rhade to Triumvir Lorn, we are ready to transfer the flag, Captain Hunt will be ready to take co-ordinated command as soon as his meeting is over."

Tri-Lorn appeared on the screen smiling wryly. "Transfer of the flag acknowledged, don't worry about your family, we'll keep them safe."

"Thank you Tri-Lorn, and we'll hold the front."

Tri-Lorn disappeared as the two Triumvir cruisers broke off.

"Andromeda, just what ships do we have with us?"

Of the three screens one resolved to show visuals of the fleet while the centre one showed the sensor telemetry and Andromeda appeared on the right screen.

"There are three DSX _Siege Perilous _class destroyers; one is the _Resolution of Hector, Pillars of Hercules _and the_ Fires of Orion. _Also present are three LRS _Eternal Vigilance _class scouted ships named-"

"I don't need to know the names Andromeda," Rhade held up his hand. "Open a channel to Beka and Doyle on Tarn-Vedra station one."

"Sending transmission now,"

* * *

"It's not that I don't want the promotion, or I don't want to head up a battle group, it's just that it all seems too good to be true. I know the Abyss stirred up all the trouble in the tri-galaxies, it's just that I can't believe it caused all of the greed and destruction without influencing corrupt and bad people to begin with." Dylan looked to Trance who stood unperturbed by Dylan's rant. "I guess with all the peace and goodwill I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop, but I don't ever want it to drop, I've got everything fixed. What I'm trying to ask Trance whether this is the perfect possible future we've been hoping for?"

Trance looked trouble.

"There is no such thing as a perfect future, but this is as close as I believe we are to get at present."

"Look Trance, please just tell me, will there be any trouble?" Dylan looked desperate.

"Dylan, I can't say, you know if I could I would." Trance looked genuinely troubled. "I'm sorry,"

Dylan nodded.

"Andromeda?" The core Ai did not manifest this time, instead the holographic form appeared next to Trance.

"_Admiral?"_

"Assemble the senior crew on the main observation deck in ten minutes."

"_Yes sir,"_

The hologram disappeared as Dylan and Trance left the office.

* * *

Once there Dylan saw Rhade and the returned Rev Bem waiting them, the Commonwealth fleet could be seen in the window above the curve of Tarn-Vedra.

"Well, this crew seems a lot smaller than I remember." Dylan looked around at the two people in the room, he was about to say more when Rommie and Harper entered.

Harper was leaning heavily into Rommie, his left hand was holding her right, for her part though Rommie didn't seen perturbed by the arrangement. Dylan and Rev raised their eyebrows while Rhade started to snigger, however he was silenced when Rommie sent him a death glare.

"Well, er… now that we're all here-" Dylan was interrupted by the two blonde women who came onto the deck.

"Aren't you forgetting someone," Beka smiled as she walked in followed by Doyle. She walked to stand by Rhade.

"Doyle?" Dylan was shocked to see her back on board.

"Seefra, Tarn-Vedra is my home; I would do anything for it; however you people, each and every one of you would do anything to save the lives of others. I think it's time I learnt why,"

Dylan smiled and looked once more at his now complete command crew.

"Alright, the Commonwealth has assigned this fleet as the first high guard battle group under my command, I've been promoted to Admiral,"

"Congratulations boss,"

"Good work,"

Dylan let the commendations wash over him temporarily before continuing.

"Yeah, well the _Wrath of Achilles _will be joining us with our first assignment, Beka I want you to coordinate our flight with the other ships in the fleet. Rev, I need you to go through our scientific databases. Rhade, I'd like you to come up with an optimal fleet positioning for when the _Achilles _arrives. Now Harper…" Dylan stopped finally noticing that Harper and Rommie were still holding each other's hands and Harper was still leaning on Rommie's shoulder, Dylan caught the smell of alcohol. "When you sober up, I'd like you and Rommie to talk with the other engineers and ship AIs to gain an inventory of the fleets' capabilities. Doyle, I don't really know what to ask you to do, so just check over the _Andromeda's _systems. Dismissed."

Dylan made his way out followed by Beka and the others except for Rommie and Harper who had turned to face the fleet in the window.

* * *

The Nietzschean battle cruiser flew in a series of evasive manoeuvres, covered by magog swarm ships, the ships pilot pulled himself up onto the console his bone blades were covered in blood from his fight with the magog.

He turned the ship to see the bulk of the Magog satellite ship on the sensors, the swarm ships were leaving. The pilot smiled, he'd survived.

A chime caught his attention; there was a massive power build up from the Magog ship.

"No,"

But it was too late, the PSP tower on the flying moon flashed red as the projected singularity flew from the launcher heading towards the cruiser.

The Nietzschean did the best he could but the Projected Singularity still smashed straight through the ship, metal screamed in protest as secondary explosions finished the two halves of the ship to atoms.

The Magog watched the destruction; even without the Abyss guiding them they still had a lot of knowledge about other universes and they knew where to hide to gather their strength, a second satellite ship joined the first, a flotilla of swarm ships stayed at the ready.

With a flash the blue tesseract of the route of ages appeared in front of them, the route existed in all universes and had more than one aperture in the single timeline.

After waiting the requisite time the Magog ships entered the route heading into another universe.

* * *

The slip-portal opened and the last of Dylan's new fleet arrived; the destroyer _Wrath of Achilles _came out of the slip-stream to face the _Andromeda._

"This is Captain Ryan to Admiral Hunt, permission to come aboard sir?" Ryan, the avatar of the _Achilles _was already in a slip fighter to make the trip.

"_This is Admiral Hunt on the Andromeda, permission to board is granted."_

Ryan's slip fighter sped across the distance to the _Andromeda's _main hanger.

When he emerged he saw Admiral Hunt and Captain Valentine waiting for him.

"Admiral Hunt, sir permission to come aboard?" Ryan saluted his superior.

Dylan returned the salute.

"At ease Captain, walk with us," Ryan joined Dylan and Beka as the left the bay. "So what pray tell is our first assignment Captain?"

"Well Admiral, following leads from a slip-scout we believe we've found a staging area for the remaining Magog forces, at least two satellite ships have been sighted in the Drazoni system on Orions arm in the Milky Way galaxy. Our orders are to seek them out and destroy them."

Dylan nodded.

"Good the fleet will be ready shortly; I'll have Rhade show you the positioning for the fleet before we depart."

Ryan nodded as he passed a flexi over to Hunt before leaving the corridor and heading back to the hanger deck.

* * *

When Dylan and Beka arrived on the command centre Trance and Doyle were on the bank of controls to the left of the slip-stream navigation console while Harper and Rommie were on the left.

"All ships report ready Admiral," Rommie reported from her station, not looking up. "And I'm ready for full combat, all AP tanks are full and we have a full complement of defensive and offensive kinetic kill missiles along with Smart arrow attack vehicles and smart missiles."

"We also have a large bay full of hunter-killer drones and enough raw materials to build a solar system smashing arsenal," Harper chimed in over Rommie's shoulder.

Rommie turned and mock-glared at him, Harper however smirked back causing Rommie to roll her eyes and turn away smiling slightly herself.

"They've been doing that for a while," Dylan turned to see Rhade once more in full high guard uniform. "I've gone over the data and have plotted a route to the Drazoni system."

"Good," Dylan turned to Beka, who in turn nodded heading to the slip-stream controls. "Andromeda open a channel to the fleet, tell them to follow us out to slip-stream.

The _Andromeda_ pulled out of orbit heading towards the nearest slip-point, the _Wrath of Achilles _pulled in front of the _Andromeda _while the _Fires of Orion _and _Pillars of Hercules _took up a position of thesides. The _Resolution of Hector _pulled back to the _Eternal Vigilance _class ships and the Lancer drop ships as the glowing blue slip-point opened with the _Andromeda _taking point.

* * *

Inside the Drazoni system a slip-portal opened and the _Eternal Vigilance _class scout ship emerged, inside the command deck, a smaller and darker version of the _Andromeda's._

The Perseid captain looked up at the sensor displays.

"Fenrir, report status," The Perseid examined all of the sensor displays and could see anything more than asteroids within a single AU.

"Scanning, no traces of any ships in the system, shall I call the fleet," The male avatar of the _Fenrir _had appeared beside his Perseid commander.

"Yes, call the _Andromeda,"_ turning the large chair that controlled the slipstream navigation to the weapons officer. "Ready all four missile tubes and keep the AP canons on standby."

"Yes sir," the weapons officer was a Nietzschean female, her bone blades glistened in the low lighting.

"Captain, the _Andromeda _and her task force have arrived,"

The Perseid turned to the three view screens to see the _Andromeda, Wrath of Achilles _and _Fires of Orion _take point while the _Resolution_ _of Hector _and _Pillars of Hercules _hung back to give the lancers and the other two _Eternal Vigilance class _ships cover.

* * *

"Rommie, you reading anything?" Dylan looked back from his station at the front of command.

"Negative, reports confirmed from the fleet, nothing for three AU." Rommie didn't look up from her display, but Harper seemed to see something on the sensors.

"Boss, I'm reading a massive gravitational anomaly, it seems to…"

Whatever Harper was going to say was cut off when _Andromeda's _core AI appeared on the main screen.

"_Detecting multiple slipstream events, a Magog satellite ship has entered the system along with several hundred swarm ships, distance is three light minutes. At their current velocity they'll be here within six minutes."_

"Bring us about, tell the _Achilles _and _Orion _to fire missiles at the swarm ships, use the destroyers to clear a path to the satellite ship." Dylan was on his feet; in battle he was never comfortable enough to stay still for long.

"_Achilles _and _Orion _have engaged the swarm ships." Rommie reported.

The two _Siege Perilous _class ships opened up firing kinetic kill missiles from up two one hundred of their missile launchers. The missiles speed through the distance at .95 of the speed of light, some of the swarm ships were instantly destroyed, however the swarm ships quickly moved apart and returned fire with their point singularity projectors.

The _Achilles _and _Orion _instantly began evasive manoeuvres; the destroyers fired defensive missiles to try to intercept the _incoming_ black holes. The _Achilles _swerved at right angles to its pervious course, but it wasn't enough, one of the PSPs hit home, ploughing straight through the hull. Ryan gripped his console and gasped in pain, as the whole ship pitched to the side and the organic crew flew across the room, Ryan tried to return fire but the control grid had taken a direct impact; that _hurt._

"The _Wrath of Achilles _has been knocked out of the fight," Rommie looked at Dylan as she added her report.

Dylan nodded in turn.

"Rhade, has the satellite ship reached a light minute distance?"

Rhade examined the display.

"No, they're holding at eighty light seconds," Rhade looked to his CO. "Shall I open fire?"

Dylan shook his head.

"There are too many swarm ships, if we launch from this distance the magog will have over a minute to intercept, that's too long."

"_And how many of us will die in the meantime," _It was the AI of the _Hercules _that had appeared on _Andromeda's _screen as the ship moved into strike the satellite ships.

"Dammit, get the _Hercules _up now,"

On the screen _Hercules _appeared once more.

"_Admiral, I am executing an attack run now,"_

"_Hercules, _break off now, that's an order!"

But Dylan was too late; the _Hercules _had opened up with direct offensive missiles, all of which were intercepted by swarm ships. The satellite ship then saw fit to return the favour; a single PSP was fired from the Magog ship.

The _Hercules _moved down along its _z-axis, _but it wasn't fast enough, the PSP smashed through one of the top pylons completely dislodging it from the ship. With the explosion the _Hercules _spun out of control while the satellite ship moved forwards.

"Boss, their targeting us with PSPs," Harper said, typing furiously at the displays.

"Correction, they're firing, six singularities incoming." Rommie added, reaching over Harper to make some adjustments.

"Beka, full evasive!"

The _Andromeda _spun and rolled on its axis allowing four of the PSPs to go through the gaps in the ships super structure, while the fifth missed completely, however the sixth grazed the starboard side of the ships main section.

Sparks flew from displays, Dylan held onto his console as hard as he could, out of the corner of his eyes he could see Beka fall to the ground while Rhade held on for dear life.

Harper had stumbled forward, just before his head would have impacted the console Rommie grabbed him and pulled him, in order to stop him falling again Rommie pulled Harper's right arm over her shoulders.

The satellite ship moved past the _Andromeda _and her escorts towards the gravity well.

"Boss, I'm getting some strange readings,"

On the screen the satellite ship spun on its axis as the blue tesseract formed in front of it.

"The route of ages," Dylan muttered beneath his breath as the satellite ship entered.

"Admiral, the _Hercules _is out of control," Rommie looked up from her displays to see the _Hercules _spin into theroute behind them.

The blue tesseract flashed and closed as the route sealed itself. Dylan closed his eyes for a second.

"All stations stand down; send a tech team to help the crew of the _Achilles." _

Dylan turned and left the deck clearly annoyed.

"Harper you can remove your arm now," Rommie didn't look up from her work as Harper continued to lean on her.

"What if I don't want to," Harper smirked at her, Rommie turned and looked at him with her eyebrows raised, Harper nodded and pulled back.

* * *

Sometime later after the fleet had righted itself Dylan, Ryan and the other ship captains sat in _Andromeda's _briefing room, Dylan stood at the head.

"Alright, people the _Hercules _fell through the route of ages into another universe, we need to organise an SAR mission through," Dylan took in the looks of the ship captains. "Trance has agreed to lead of fleet through to the universe the _Hercules _was sent. As we don't know what is on the other side, the _Fenrir _will go first escorted by the _Resolution of Hector _and the _Fires of Orion_ and the _Andromeda _will follow with the _Wrath of Achilles _taking up the rear with the other ships. Understood?"

The others nodded as Dylan left.

* * *

"We ready?" Dylan strode into the command centre as the ships fell into position.

"Yeah boss, _Andromeda _is ready, Rommie's in top shape to go through," Harper told Dylan.

"The fleet also reports ready," Rhade added from the other side of the deck.

"Okay Trance you have the conn."

Trance nodded as she took the controls and as one the fleet of High Guard ships moved to the edge of the tesseract as a series of courier ships sped off to slip-stream while the fleet exited the known universe.


	2. A New Universe

The flames of Origin burnt as they listened to the Abyss, the hatred and love compelled the Ori to obey as they had done since they civil war. The shrieking flared as the Abyss died down, the Ori reeled with shock, the core of their being had been ripped away. The individuals added their history together before coming to one conclusion; the Abyss was testing them, it needed to be shown how much the Ori were devoted to them.

It only took a moment for them to decide what should be done, a single Ori left their home Galaxy and headed as fast as it could to the Galaxy inhabited by the children of the Alterra.

* * *

Deep in the Pegasus galaxy, a fleet of wraith ships were hidden in the middle of a nebula awoke; the Abyss had been ripped from their hive mind, their driving force collapsed. Hundreds of hive ships throughout the nebula powered up, the wraith were once more ready for war, and they were hungry.

* * *

Daniel sat in meditation on the Ori ship opposite of Adria, his skin felt dry and taught from his transformation into a prior, at the back of his mind he could feel hatred and love in equal measure trying to drive him to the Ori's side. It took both his and Moros' efforts to keep it at bay. Daniel opened one of his eyes to look at Adria, '_was she in the thrall of the influence'_ he kept wondering.

Daniel winced, a horrible screeching echoed through his mind followed by an image of a star and a massive Starship, graceful and beautiful. The light further resolved to show in a blood red tint the image of a man, wearing a brown leather jacket and a blue shirt, his eyes were closed as if in pain, this was followed by the image of a gorgeous blond woman and a second with golden hair. Daniel started to scream as two further people resolved to a man with spikey blond hair and another gorgeous woman with black hair with gold highlights.

Daniel's vision blacked out, when he came to Adria was looking down at him, her eyes showed concern.

"Daniel, are you alright?" Adria's hands caressed Daniel's as he got to his feet.

"What on Earth was that?!" Daniel's forehead was creased in pain as he still processed what had happened.

Before Adria could answer a column of flame dropped from the ceiling and formed into a person, his features seemed indistinct and fuzzy, it had no face and if Daniel was asked to describe him later he'd be unable too.

"_The Abyss has gone silent; we must take this as a sign. Move to attack Earth."_

The Ori flared and disappeared, Adria swallowed. She then got up from her place beside Daniel and closed her eyes as the ship came about and headed out to regroup with the other ships. She then turned back to face Daniel.

"Okay, what's the Abyss?" Daniel began to feel a barrage of questions ready.

Adria nodded.

"It's time to tell you the truth…"

* * *

The _Pillars of Hercules _fell through the route, his crew was unconscious due to the damage from the PSP, _Hercules _himself though was already righting himself on the railings, his android body had been overtaxed by the explosions on the command deck. His passive sensors were picking up a ship of comparable size approaching. The ship seemed to be surrounded by some sort of energy field that made it visible to his passive sensors. The vessel had a triangular base pyramid as the central core and some sort of side base structure around it. The ship was just under half a light second out; that was a little too close given that _Hercules _was a destroyer, not a cruiser.

Reaching out _Hercules _armed twenty of his remaining missile launchers for ship-to-ship missiles and brought his few anti-proton canons to the ready, before he was ready to fire an incoming signal came from the ship. With the androids taking wounded off the bridge _Hercules _delegated the communication to his core AI; the unknown vessel didn't need to know how crippled he was.

"This is Lucian Alliance territory, you will stand down and prepare to be boarded in the name of Netan," The person on the unknown vessel was a human, of that at least _Hercules _was certain, quickly analysing the speech _Hercules _found the appropriate language; Earth, English.

"_This is Lieutenant Commander Hercules acting CO of the high guard ship Pillars of Hercules, you will keep your distance from me for the present any further move will result in your destruction."_

The only response was weapons fire; plasma bursts as the ship was only few thousand kilometres away. Knowing his own capabilities _Hercules _backed off, plasma weapons were short range, only moving at 10 PSL for a ten second burst _Hercules _got a light second away from the hostile before returning fire, kinetic kill missiles from tubes one through ten. The ten missiles sped from the ELS tubes at 95 PSL; colliding with the Ha'tak the kinetic energy alone was enough to crack the force field while the remaining missiles chewed the Ha'tak up for breakfast. When the image of the fireball reached the _Hercules _it was already a second old, the battle was won.

The _Hercules _came about, still listing due to the loss of the upper port pylon, retracting the battle blades he tried to find the same slip-point through which he'd seen the magog satellite ship leave through. But the controls were too sluggish, at this rate it'd take just under an hour to cover the 5 light minutes the magog had gone before entering the slip-stream.

* * *

In orbit of a newly converted planet an Ori ship awaited orders from the Orici, the prior to be honest was bored out of his mind, that was till an unidentified energy surge registered.

"Battlestations!" the Priors troops sprang to action.

Stretching out through the ships sensors the prior could see the enemy, a flying moon surrounded by swarms of unknown fighters. Before the prior could react a massive energy emission was detected from the moon, before it fired what the sensors assured the Prior was a black hole.

The Ori ship swerved to the side as the PSP ripped straight through the shields as the shields fell and hundreds of the swarm ships began to attach themselves to the hull and the magog inhabitants poured into the ship. The prior was able to hold off the things that were on his ship for a brief while, but it wasn't long till he was completely overwhelmed by dozens of them, he saw one of them spit something at him, but after that he lost consciousness as the paralytic poison worked. The magog swarmed over the unprepared crew eating them and then those that were left alive were infested with eggs while a formation of swarm ships headed for the planet.

* * *

The _Fenrir _and the _Resolution of Hector _came first through the tesseract, using their passive sensors they located the _Hercules _limping towards an obvious slip-point.

"This is Captain Errin Shohashi of the high guard destroyer DSX-05 _Resolution of Hector_ to DSX-06 _Pillars of Hercules_, please respond." Errin stood inside her command deck as the _Hercules _slowed.

"_This is Lieutenant Commander Hercules, acting captain of DSX-06, to Captain Shohashi, responding now."_

On the screen the image of the _Hercules _AI appeared, behind him was the wrecked command deck.

"Lieutenant Commander, please report your status," Errin was still unused to treating the ships as actual people but after serving with them she couldn't argue that they were real any less than she could claim that all kluges were inferior, Hunt had proved that to her during their first meeting.

"A_ll but one hundred of my missile launchers are down; all of my AP canons are operational however. Captain Connors however is dead; he passed away just under an hour ago."_

Errin was ready to hit something very hard.

"Very well, stand ready for arrival of our engineers to assist," Errin nodded to her first officer who moved to comply.

"_Thank you Captain I would be most grateful for your assistance."_

_Hercules _disappeared to be replaced by his ship-self turning to face them.

"Captain, sensor contact detected," it was a Than officer who answered. "It's the _Andromeda,"_

Sure enough on the screen the _Andromeda _was surrounded by the two remaining _Siege Perilous _class ships and her other ships.

"_This is Admiral Hunt to the fleet, all ships report status."_

* * *

Netan sat watching the relayed subspace transmission as the unknown ship came through the distortion and destroyed his Ha'tak with ease.

"What kind of weapons were they using, our shields were useless?" Netan had seen the Ori ships in action, if there was another new enemy other than the Tau'ri then he was in trouble.

"Send five ships to find out what's there, if they won't surrender I want them gone."

* * *

Dylan sat opposite Trance in his office.

"What can you tell me about this universe?" Dylan looked Trance in the eye. "Trance, if I'm going to find the Magog I need to know how this universe works. Trance please tell me, anything."

Trance sighed and looked him in the eye back.

"The Abyss has been here, I can sense its influence stretching back millions of years," Trance reached forwards to take his hand. "Dylan, I can't tell you everything, but I can tell you that this universe needs our help and…"

"_Dylan, you'd better get up here, five unknown ships identical to the one that attacked the Hercules have just appeared under one light second out,"_

Dylan and Trance responded running up to command following Beka's summons.

When they reached the deck Rommie had already pulled the fleet together to defend the troop transports and scout ships.

"Rommie, what have you got on those ships?" Dylan was confused at how easily the _Hercules _destroyed the first one.

"Well, their main armament seems to be plasma canons, and their only defence seems to be some kind of energy barrier," Rommie seemed ready to say something more before Harper leaned over her shoulder.

"Yeah, and it seems to be absolutely useless with high velocity kinetic impacts, we'll roast them with AP canons or our missiles easily, we could take them, come on Boss they fired at the _Hercules _without provocation." Harper pleaded with Hunt.

"I agree with Harper," Rommie said looking Dylan in the face. "Their first response was to open fire on an unknown ship, that doesn't seem very friendly."

Dylan sighed in exasperation.

"Agreed," Dylan turned to see Rhade leaning forward. "If it was a mistake then they're not going to be too good any ally if they want to shoot at you, on the other hand they could mean us harm."

Dylan conceded that Rhade was right, just then he could have easily seen Telemachus replaced by Gaheris, this Rhade was Dylan's second chance with his best friend, and this time he would listen to him, last time he failed to listen till it was too late.

"Arm missile tubes one through eight for kinetic kill missiles, tell the fleet to ready their stores," Dylan turned to Doyle. "Open a channel to those ships, and translate what they're saying."

"_This is Admiral Hunt of the first High Guard battle group; please explain your presence here,"_

The sensors started to bleep.

"They've fired, extremely low velocity plasma bursts," Rommie turned to Dylan, while Rhade gave him a 'told you so' glance.

"Return fire, defensive missiles,"

From two of the _Andromeda's _missile launchers a series of green missile lept forth, moving faster than the human eye sped out and exploded taking out the plasma bursts.

"What are they doing?" Dylan turned to Rhade.

"They're holding position," Rhade glanced up, his eyes asking the question his military training prevented him from saying out loud.

"Alright, fire AP canons, take them out," Dylan looked at the floor. "_Doesn't anyone have manners in this universe?_"

From two of _Andromeda's _AP canons copious amounts of anti-matter sped out at 99PSL.

On the Ha'taks peltak they saw the _Andromeda _fire, and just under a second later they lurched back as the shields buckled under the relativistic blasts. The shields were never designed to face such a bombardment and swiftly buckled, the anti-protons then easily destroyed the first three Ha'taks, the last two however tried to head out, the first one was easily destroyed but the last was able to get to hyperspace.

"One of the ships has entered some sort of portal," Rommie looked confused as she examined the data from her sensors.

"Yeah, it seems like they've forced open some sort of controlled slip-stream conduit," Harper seemed fascinated by them. "Did you see the design, almost Egyptian?"

* * *

"Erm… What is that?" Daniel had to ask looking out of the window beside Adria at what he could swear was a flying moon.

"Beats me," Adria actually looked scared, but then who could blame her given the visual of the sister ship to her personal cruiser. The small fighter ships were spread over the hull penetrating every section while the planet showed no life signs. "Daniel, do you mind going over there?"

"What?!"

"Take Tomin and some soldiers, we need more information," Adria gave Daniel a look that swiftly broke any resolve he had.

"Alright, but is we get killed I'm gonna come back to haunt you after my ascension," Daniel smirked as he left the deck.

Sometime later on board the Ori ship Daniel and Tomin picked their way through the corpses of the dead crew.

"What do you think happened here?" Tomin looked ready to through up.

"I have no idea," Daniel himself wasn't feeling any better. "To be honest, I'm not sure I want to know."

Tomin nodded in agreement as they opened the door onto the bridge, they both stepped in together to see the carnage wrought, Daniel closed his eyes and reached back to Moros' consciousness.

_Have you seen anything like this before?_

Daniel only waited a few seconds for the response.

_No, not even the wraith showed such brutality._

Daniel had to try something else, ever since he'd been turned into a prior he'd thought that something more was going on, that even the Ancients and Ori were just pawns in someone's big game of chess.

_What about this 'Spirit of the Abyss,' does that ring any bells?_

Daniel knew that whatever the Abyss was it wasn't misdirection, the Ori wouldn't risk the wrath of the Ancients if it wasn't an absolute necessity.

_Maybe, we used to have any ally that lived in the Andromeda galaxy, they were very imperialistic, we only really had a tentative truce after they repelled us from their two galaxies. But they did have some sort of ancient demon they called the 'Spirit of the Abyss', maybe it wasn't just a myth after all._

Daniel felt a surge of hope.

_Well can we contact them?_

"Daniel!" Tomin cried out looking at the body of the fallen Prior. "He's still alive."

Daniel surged forward, at the very least he needed to know what had happened here, if there was someone who could do this to an Ori ship then what could they do to Earth. The Prior was indeed still breathing, but that was all, a nasty cut ran the length of his face and he'd clearly bleed almost to death.

The Prior suddenly convulsed, Daniel reached out telepathically to try to commune with the Prior, but there was nothing. A mucus-like fluid began to flow from the Priors mouth, Daniel reared back when the stomach burst open and larva like life forms broke out.

Daniel felt his control shift as Moros took control and reached out telekinetically to kill them.

* * *

"Trance, are you sure you want to do this?" Dylan stood in front of Trance at the slip-stream controls, his eyes showed all of his concern.

"Yes Dylan, we don't know any slip-stream routes in this universe and we need to find the Magog," Trance reached out one of her hands to take Dylan's. "Trust me."

Dylan smiled back.

"I trust you Trance," Dylan turned to the three sensor screens. "This is Admiral Hunt to the fleet, take us out."

With Dylan's order the fleet moved in unison into the slip-stream portal, Trance closed her eyes and rolled the ship through the stream sensing the correct threads by possible futures she was able to retrace the path taken by the Magog.

Coming out of slip-stream the _Andromeda _and her escorts could see two unknown ships with a forward ring section and a set of supports running backwards to engine units, one of them had been attached to dozens of Magog swarm ships, and the satellite ship was turning to face them.

"Beka, take the helm,"

Trance moved to stand beside Dylan as the satellite ship fired a volley of PSPs.

"Beka, full evasive," Dylan was shouting. "Rhade fire all defensive missiles, Rommie tell the destroyers to back off."

The _Andromeda _raced away from the PSPs as her defensive missiles took them out while the destroyers speed out to a range of ten light seconds while firing their own missiles.

"Lock on target to the satellite ship, missile tubes one through fifteen, direct offensive missiles, full salvo, fire" Dylan looked at the sensor feed, they couldn't hold this engagement for long.

The _Andromeda _flew circles around the Magog at 30 PSL, from her launchers one hundred and twenty missiles launched every second, they speed out at 95 PSL and tore through the crust on the moon-ship, it only took three seconds under this bombardment to destroy the satellite ship.

The _Andromeda _spun 360 degrees on her axis and turned to meet the swarm ships heading up from the planet.

"_This is Admiral Hunt to all destroyers, smart missile and hunter killer drones, take the fighters out!"_

From the _Wrath of Achilles _and _Resolution of Hector _thousands of self-guided missiles speed out from all one hundred and eighty launchers on each ship, the same was true for the _Fires of Orion_ a second later.

"Launch fighters," Dylan turned back to Rhade. "Take out as many swarm ships as you can. Rommie, get your internal defences ready to deal with any uninvited Magog guests. Get the unknown ship on comm, translate to English for me"

The _Andromeda _moved to the side as her squadrons of slip-fighters moved out to engage those ships that got through the missile barrage. The unknown ship that hadn't already been overrun by the Magog launched a series of auxiliary craft, they seemed to be more akin to transports in size than fighters, the Magog were able to run rings around them with ease before opening up with their smaller, but no less effective PSPs, the auxiliary craft never stood a chance.

The unknown vessel fire its primary weapon at the fighters, according to _Andromeda's _sensors was again a burst of plasma, this one however was slightly faster reaching .1 PSL at a stretch and had a larger amount of plasma, Rommie calculated that while it wasn't as powerful as the plasma weapons used by the Pyrians a sustained barrage could cause her damage, however the massive burst of low-velocity plasma was useless against the Magog fighters, they veered out the way and fired their PSPs, the energy barrier of the unknown vessel held, but they were able to drain the energies from them faster than anything seen before.

* * *

Adria watched as the new ships, one of which was larger than hers fired what their sensor said was missiles at a massive portion of the speed of light to destroy the moon, at that velocity it wouldn't matter if it was shooting pebbles at her ship the shields would still be next to useless.

She then saw the thousands of fighters heading up from the planet.

"Launch our own fighters, assist the unknown ships in holding them off," Adria was scared; first the Abyss abandons them, now this new foe attacks, one of her soldiers turned to face her.

"What if they're unbelievers?" Adria rolled her eyes, while the lack of common sense amongst the followers of the Ori made it easier to dupe them sometimes it made it hard to get anything done.

"It doesn't matter, we've seen what they did to one of our ships, and we've seen them take down that moon without breaking a sweat, we need all the help we can get. Here's something to learn that you should take to heart, the enemy of my enemy is my friend." Adria turned away from the soldier. "Launch fighters and fire weapons."

She watched as the fighters blocked the plasma burst and opened fire, Adria smiled before their weapons fire hit them, the deck shook as sparks fell from the ceiling. Adria check what was hitting them and couldn't believe what the sensors was telling her about the enemy fire, because the sensors told her that the shields were being drained by black holes.

Her fighters were swiftly overwhelmed and destroyed, she fled into the neural interface as the shields dropped below 20%.

"Orici, we are being hailed by the unknown flagship," one of her soldiers tried to look her in the eye but could seem to make himself meet hers.

"Open a channel lets see it," Adria nearly shouted out as the image of a man in an obvious military uniform appeared on the screen.

"_This is Admiral Hunt of the Systems Commonwealth High Guard Battle Group, commanding officer of the Andromeda Ascendant, what is your status?"_

"Well, our shields are about to collapse and our weapons are useless compared to whoever our attacks are and we still have people on that other ship," _Daniel's still there, _Adria added silently. "Any assistance you could offer would be grateful."

Dylan nodded.

"_Very well, veer your ship away, we'll take care of the Magog and get your people back, Hunt out,"_

The stranger, Admiral Hunt, disappeared from the screen, Adria hadn't been able to touch his mind, it was as if he was protected in some way but he did seem like an honourable man, in practically every other circumstance that would be a problem, but with Daniel's life on the line it was a blessing.

* * *

The _Andromeda's _fighters and combat drones weaved about as they drew the swarm ships off; however even with the missile fire from the warships they were still out matched.

A few tried to get close to the _Andromeda _but found a nasty surprise in the form of one of her planet fall warfare bots. After their effective use against the Magog a few years ago Dylan had decided to put them on standby. Each of the two bots defended an area of hull and picked off any fighters that got passed the PDLs and defensive missiles.

"Whoa, you go _Rom-doll, _turn those Magog suckers into junk," Harper cried out with joy as he saw the swarm ships destroyed on the screen, Rommie for her part rolled her eyes but continued to direct fire.

"Rhade, how much longer can we hold out?" Dylan could see the fighters on the sensors, while the Magog were dropping they weren't going fast enough, the slip-fighters were running out of ammunition faster than they could take down the Magog.

"Not much, once our fighters are gone we'll be swarmed by those ships and we'll lose the entire fleet," Rhade calmly summed up the worst case scenario. "We have to leave, the Commonwealth needs these ships and you to stop my people and anyone else who attacks us."

Dylan turned back to the engagement, _there had to be a way of winning without losing the fleet._

"Harper, can we eject some of our anti-protons into the heart of that formation?" Dylan remembered how they'd destroyed the Nietzschean fleet at Witchhead, although they weren't in a nebula the swarm ships were still made from matter and would react to the anti-protons.

"We'll yeah, but we'd need to pull our fighters back," Harper could already see where Dylan was going.

"Good get it done, Rhade tell our fighters to herd the Magog into one formation." Dylan didn't let himself hope, it wasn't over just yet.

The expertly trained fighter pilots were able to box the Magog into a single area before breaking off, a few were destroyed by PSPs but once in position the _Andromeda _spun so her engines faced the swarm ships as streams of Anti-Protons sped into the heart of the swarm, destroying the entire formation within moments.


	3. Interludes

As the _Andromeda _came around Dylan watched the Magog infested ship in front of him.

"Rhade, you and Doyle take a team of Lancers over to get their people out, if you find any Magog neutralise them," the two nodded as they left command. "Rommie, get the unknown ship back on the comm."

Rommie nodded as the screen resolved to show the elegantly dressed woman who commanded the vessel.

"This is Admiral Hunt to unknown vessel, I'm sending a ship to evac your people now, but before I send them over I need to know just who you are, and if you pose any threat to my crew?" While Dylan wanted to find some allies he wasn't naïve enough to think that he'd find trust in a universe that may not have ever had a systems commonwealth.

"_My name is Adria, I am called Orici and I command the forces of the followers of the Ori in this Galaxy and as for threat I will not attack the people who just saved our lives, if you like I'll come over to your ship to recover my people and reassure you of my intentions."_

Dylan nodded in understanding.

"Very well, I'll signal when we're ready for you, Hunt out," Dylan gestured as Rommie cut the link.

"Dylan," turning to see Trance advancing towards him she took one of his hands and took him out of the ear shot of the others.

"Trance, what is it?" Dylan was always concerned when Trance acted like this.

"Dylan, that woman is dangerous; I sensed her trying to read your mind over the communications, due to your nature as a Paradine she wasn't able to get a read, but any of the other members of the crew are vulnerable, you can't let her over."

"Well what else can I do Trance, we can't verify intentions over a communications channel and I need to know who I'm dealing with,"

"Then trust me, the people on the other ship can be saved, but that woman can't be trusted I can sense the Abyss."

* * *

"Orici, if they will not follow the teachings of Origin we need to destroy them," a Prior to Adria's side started.

"_No," _Adria's tone was icy cold. "Did you see what kind of weapons those ships had, we are clearly outmatched, they _just destroyed that flying moon in a matter of seconds!"_

"I see," The Prior said his one eye hardening.

"_You see?" _Adria was worried where this was going.

"I knew your association with the Tau'ri would cloud your judgement, Daniel Jackson has made you soft, you have forgotten the teachings of Origin. _All unbelievers must be destroyed, with gods on our side we will not lose!" _ The Prior was beginning to advance on her as he shouted. "Madame Orici, I'm afraid I must relieve you of your duty as commander of this fleet, I must stop you before it's too late."

Adria saw the Prior draw in his energy to strike, Adria stroke first, sending a burst of energy the Prior fell back, before he could strike again Adria ran at him pressing a solid punch into his jaw forcing him to the ground. Adria leapt on top of him and continued punching till the bleeding prior was left unconscious, when she was sure he was no longer a threat Adria got up.

"Does anyone else seek to disobey my orders?" Adria looked around as the soldiers backed off in fear. "Good, I'll be in my quarters."

* * *

Rhade and Doyle moved ahead of the Lancers, advancing by leap frog through the ship Doyle couldn't help but admire Rhade's composure, if she had a stomach she was sure she would have been sick by now, as it was he had two force lances in his hands one in the left held out while a second was held in his raised right hand.

"Doyle, are you getting anything?" Rhade looked uneasy looking down at the aftermath of the Magog attack.

"Are you alright?" Doyle looked aside as they advanced through another bulkhead.

"I'm fine,"

"No you're not," Doyle didn't have to be an android to tell that Rhade was lying.

"What does it matter to you?" Rhade practically spat at her.

"It matters to me that someone on my team is not doing so good and may jeopardize all our lives, so what is it Rhade,"

Rhade closed his eyes as he continued. "The last time I faced these things was on Arkology when they killed Louissa in front of me when I couldn't do anything to stop them," Rhade's voice was laced with venom.

"Rhade, I can't even imagine how that must feel, but this isn't about evening scores,"

"For you it's not," Rhade said as firmly as he could.

"Rhade, listen to me, I don't care what your rank is, if we get overwhelmed I need to know that you'll stay with us and do your job,"

Rhade didn't respond verbally but nodded.

"I can see something on the IR through this door,"

Both Doyle and Rhade moved to the side of the door as the Lancers took up positions across the corridor. They nodded at each other as the door opened they swung in raising their weapons…

* * *

On board the _Pillars of Hercules _extensive repairs were ongoing, and the _Hercules _AI was still in charge, as _Hercules _stood in the first officer station and examined his core he found a selection of control directives that kept giving anomalous results. _Hercules _knew that he was rushed into completion after the battle of Enga's redoubt; he also knew that early in the Commonwealth civil war he'd been captured by the Collectors, although his memories of the time had been erased he knew that in order to recapture him he'd almost been destroyed when he was recaptured by the High Guard.

Adjusting the controls he opened a signal direct to the _Andromeda._

"This is Lieutenant Commander _Hercules _to Admiral Hunt please respond, I need to talk to Admiral Hunt urgently,"

On the screen Beka appeared.

"_This is Captain Beka Valentine, first officer of the Andromeda Ascendant responding to the Pillars of Hercules, I'm afraid Admiral Hunt's unavailable at the moment but if you'd like to leave a message I'll be willing to take it."_

Beka smiled at the android avatar, _Hercules _rolled his eyes.

"There is a problem which I can't discuss on an open channel, I'll be coming over on a slip-fighter, please inform the Admiral."

_Hercules _closed the channel as he walked to the hanger not noticing that his core AI was beginning to run erroneous programing from a file sector that didn't exist.

* * *

Daniel and Tomin jumped up as two people entered the ruined control room of the Ori mother ship, the first was a beautiful blond haired woman and a dark haired man, they were both carrying weapons of some kind.

"Erm, hi my name is Daniel Jackson and this is Tomin, we mean no harm," Daniel had his two hands raised.

"Were you sent here by the other ship?" The man kept his two weapons trained and only now did Rhade see the bone blades extending down from his forearms.

"Yes," Daniel said slowly, very cautious of the new arrivals.

"Well, todays your lucky day, it's time for you to get out of here," the man lowered his weapons. "I'm Lieutenant Commander Telemachus Rhade of the High Guard of the Systems Commonwealth and this is Doyle, these men are under my command we're here to get you both out of here."

"Daniel, are you sure we can trust them, they seem to be unbeli…" Tomin was cut off by a horrible shrieking in the distance.

"Magog," Rhade swore under his breath.

"Never mind," Tomin said in a light-hearted manner as he picked up his staff weapon.

Before anyone could react a fur covered creature burst from the ceiling faster than anyone else Doyle, the blond woman, advanced on the creature, presumably the 'Magog' to which Rhade referred.

Doyle was fast, as Daniel readied his telekinesis to help but it wasn't needed, Doyle kicked the Magog hard in the chest forcing it into the wall before it could do anything else Doyle reached out her hands and snapped its neck.

Turning around she didn't seem at all affected.

"We need to move,"

Rhade nodded in response, Daniel and Tomin weren't in a position to argue.

They quickly began to move down the ship.

* * *

"Dylan, may I speak with you" Dylan turned to see Rev approaching.

"Sure, Rev walk with me," Dylan gestured as Rev came up beside him. "Rev what is it?"

"I have been examining the sensor details on the energy shields used by the people of this universe and I believe we can use them as a benchmark to determine the power of the ship-to-ship weapons in this universe, based on the ease with which we were able to destroy those ships at our entry point I believe that the ships in this universe are of a low standard when compared to our own."

"Well, that's good to know but-"

"_Admiral, the avatar of the Hercules just docked, he says that he has an urgent matter to discuss with you," Andromeda's _voice interrupted Dylan.

"Alright send him to my quarters," Dylan turned to Rev. "I'm sorry we'll have to continue this later.

When Dylan got there _Hercules _was waiting for him, his avatar was clearly based on the mythological figure, towering over Dylan and his uniform barely hid the large muscles beneath them.

"Alright _Hercules _what is it?" Dylan was more than a little annoyed at how everyone kept looking at him for answers and was prepared to take it out on the AI.

"Sir, I am afraid to report that my core AI may be compromised,"

"_May be compromised," _Dylan echoed raising his eyebrows. "Compromised how?"

"Sir, I don't know how much you know of the war with the Collectors, but during the first days of the war I was captured in a shipyard by a group of Collectors under the command of Pish Tryan. Under his _command _I was used to strike at loyalist Commonwealth ships, that was until I was recaptured by a High Guard force, although Pish was never found and my AI underwent a complete check line by line of binary code I believe that there may still be some Collector influence left." _Hercules _sneered at the word command. "Sir, I believe that my core AI should be shut down indefinitely."

* * *

Telemachus screamed with rage as he drove his bone blades into another Magog, he could see that Doyle had gone hand-to-hand against the Magog, she had cut a swathe through the incoming swarms while the Lancers and that man, Tomin, had kept their distance shooting at them and the pasty scared one- Daniel used telekinetic powers to hold them off.

"Commander we have to go!" Doyle spun as a Magog came up behind her, not taking a second to think she turned back slamming her palm into the bottom of its neck cracking the bone inside, not wasting anytime she turned back into the fray.

"Agreed!" Rhade shouted back as he extended his force lance into its fighting pike mode for leverage. Using it to fire smart bullets and as a pike Rhade backed off. "Doyle, clear us a path to the ship."

"What about you?" Doyle jumped into the air kicking out her two legs into the lines of Magog forcing them back.

"I'll be fine," he lashed out on another as Doyle summersaulted behind the Lancers fighting her way through.

* * *

Ensign Walker walked through the _Hercules _medical bay, something wasn't right, the AI had shown unknown functionality in a section that wasn't on official specs, running his hands along a seam he found a definite gap. Interfacing with the lock he was able to open the hidden door. Peering behind it he saw a cryo-chamber, the outer glass was frosted over. Before Walker could react the chamber cracked open and a human arm reached out…

* * *

Rhade crashed into the _Maru, _following behind him Doyle dragged the unconscious body of Tomin while Daniel looked ready to die of exhaustion.

"Get us out of here!" Rhade didn't care who responded and gasped in relief as he felt the engines fire up the _Eureka Maru _sped out of the bay, Rhade brought his handcomm out. "Rhade to Dylan take out that ship now."

Not waiting for a response Rhade closed the channel.

* * *

"_Rhade to Dylan take out that ship now,"_ On the _Andromeda's _command deck Beka turned to Rommie.

"You heard him Rommie light that ship up," Beka was confused when neither Harper nor Rommie reacted. "Erm, the ship's still there,"

"We know," Rommie didn't look up as she focused on her work.

Before Beka spoke again Harper chose to respond.

"Rhade's still in a range of that ship, if we blow it up we kill Rhade,"

"I will take them out as soon as Rhade is clear," Rommie's voice was clear and emotionless, just over a second later Rommie fired two of her AP canons.

The green bursts of anti-mater collided with the Magog infested ship, moving at 99 PSL the bolts swiftly destroyed the unshielded vessel.

"Target eliminated, the _Maru _is on course to arrive." Rommie looked up from her display at Beka. "It will arrive shortly, shall I contact Dylan?"

"Yeah, go ahead, I'll get Trance to prep med-deck, Harper you have command," Beka walked off followed by the android avatar of the ship.

* * *

Adria sat in her quarters, despite what her kin had said she could still sense the Abyss deep in her subconscious, she wanted to find it, she needed guidance, had her feelings for Daniel compromised her judgement? But no matter how far she went it always seemed to drift just further down giving up for the moment she headed back to the bridge, she needed Daniel.

* * *

In the Drazoni system three _Glorious Heritage _class heavy cruisers came out of the slip-stream, they were followed by a Triumvirate cruiser. Tri-Lorn stood at the commanding officers station of the ship.

"_Millenial, _report status," Tri-Lorn wasn't a soldier, but he needed to see this Route of Ages personally.

The ships female avatar looked up from the XO's station.

"The _Magellan Melrow, Lancer's Hope _and _Triangulum Australe _are taking position around the central location given by the _Andromeda, _we should be ready for-" _Millennial _closed her eyes and shifted her head. "Multiple slip-stream events detected, multiple Pyrian Torchships have entered the system."

The deck lighting instantly dimmed as sparks fell from the ceiling.

"They're firing, AG mass packets are scattered all over my hull, I can't manoeuvre," more sparks fell from the ceiling.

"Launch slip-fighters and return fire, all missile batteries, tell our escorts to deal with the Torchships."

"Firing missile tubes one through thirty, all slip-fighters are now deployed."

The _Millenial Rites _shifted on her axis, her movements slowed due to the mass packets, firing off a volley of two hundred and forty kinetic kill missiles, the large Torchship fired defensive missiles as it began to close in, meanwhile the _Lancer's Hope _was under heavy fire, the ship itself couldn't move it was simply too heavy for the force of the engines to produce any acceleration. However that didn't stop her firing as good as she had, AP canons and offensive missiles ripped into the Torchships.

Escape pods flew out of the _Hope_ as the Torchships closed to plasma beam range, from the tips of their blades beams of continuous blues plasma engulfed the _Hope. _Her silver/grey hull blistered and cracked, explosions broke through as the _Hope _broke up and blew.

Without the _Hope _to cover that angle the Pyrians broke off their attacks to enter the blue Tesseract of the Route.

"_Triangulum, _follow that fleet, warn the _Andromeda_ of the Pyrians," Tri-Lorn looked in horror across his ships command and control. "I'll be in my quarters,"

* * *

As the doors to the hanger deck opened the injured Lancers came out first, Trance began to take them to medical while the uninjured ones saluted Admiral Hunt, last out was Lieutenant Commander Rhade, Doyle and someone with grey brittle hair and his eyes on the floor.

"Hello, I'm Admiral Dylan Hunt commander of the first High Guard battlegroup, and you are-" Dylan stopped and fingered his force lance as the grey haired man looked up, despite the greyed hair and the facial scars this man was a spitting image of the _Balance of Judgement, _before Dylan could stop himself his eyes flared and he tensed.

"I'm sorry Admiral have I offended you in some way," the Gabriel look-a-like said calmly in a controlled manner.

_Dear lord, he even sounds like the Balance. _

"No, I'm sorry, you just look like someone, who shall we say we had some differences of opinion with." Dylan smiled diplomatically. "And you are."

"Oh, sorry, Dr Daniel Jackson," the look-a-like, Daniel, reached out a hand, Dylan begrudgingly accepted the offered hand. "Look, I know this is going to sound strange, and you can't tell Tomin-"

"Tomin?" Dylan definitely didn't like were this was going.

"The man with me on that ship, look none of that matters, what does matter is that you can't trust Adria," Daniel suddenly looked around. "Sorry, can we find somewhere private to have this conversation."

"Dylan nodded, Rhade get to medical and keep an eye on this Tomin," at Rhade's nod Dylan turned to Doyle. "Doyle, come with me and Dr Jackson."

At Daniel's questioning look Dylan continued. "It's a standard procedure when dealing with unknown."

Again smiling diplomatically Dylan turned and lead the way to his quarters while Doyle stayed back to keep an eye on Dr Jackson, she'd guessed what he really meant, he wanted an Android to support in the event that Daniel used his telekinetic powers against him.

* * *

"Okay, that's beyond creepy," Harper said watching the camera footage of this Dr Jackson.

"Agreed," Rommie stood at his shoulder she looked troubled.

"Rommie, are you alright?" Harper turned to face her directly, not even noticing that by darting in front of her he'd been boxed in by her.

"Yes I'm fine Harper, why wouldn't I be," Rommie gave a false smile that didn't fool Harper for a second.

"Look Rommie, I designed that face, I can read you well enough to know that you're lying, I know this gut may look like the _Unbalance of Judgement_ but it's not him," Harper's tone was quiet and understanding.

This time Rommie's smile was genuine.

"Harper, it's not that," she reached out her right hand and gently caressed Harper's cheek. "It's the face that he's a telekinetic that bothers me, and the fact that he's covered in scars doesn't bode well for any contact with that woman Adria."

"She looked hot," Harper grinned a little at Rommie, who rolled her eyes, but not before Harper though he saw a flash of something in Rommie's eyes. "But she's not as hot as, Rommie?"

Harper could tell that something was different given that the skin beside her eyes tensed and her eyes focused on something through the hull plating of the command centre.

"A High Guard ship just came out of the slip-stream, it's the _Triangulum Australe, _she seems heavily damaged and is sending a communications channel," swallowing she backed off from Harper, nodding as she continued. "You should probably answer it,"

"Yeah," Harper nodded as he walked out in front of the slip-stream console, _that was weird, _he turned back to see Rommie's eyes following him.

"Okay Rommie open the channel,"

The centre screen that showed Adria's ship changed to show the nearly identical command deck of the _Triangulum, _nearly in that it was darkened and heavily damaged the ships commanding officer stood at the centre.

"_This is Captain Horatio Delano of the High Guard Heavy Cruiser Triangulum Australe XMC-19-276, I need to talk to Admiral Hunt, Captain Valentine or Lieutenant Commander Rhade urgently on a matter of grave importance."_

"Sorry, but Admiral Hunt, Beka and Rhade are disposed at the moment, but you can talk to me," Harper smirked at the High Guard Captain.

"_Listen here boy!"_

Before Delano could continue Rommie butted in.

"Captain, you are an officer in the High Guard and you will show proper decorum," Rommie's voice was icy, like that she'd use before opening fire on a target. "Seamus Harper is my chief engineer and thus holds the equivalent grade of Lieutenant Commander and thus is authorized to take any communiques on the behalf of Admiral Hunt as he is the functional Fourth officer in the chain of command he would be party to any information given, he is thus an appropriate receiver."

Before the speechless Captain could retort Rhade walked onto the deck having heard all that had been said with his Nietzschean hearing.

"Captain, the _Andromeda _is correct, anything you have to say to Dylan, Beka or myself you can say to Harper," Rhade moved to stand beside Harper was he folded his arms. "Now I believe you have a message?"

Delano blinked a few times before continuing.

"_Fine, Lieutenant Commanders, as of five hours ago the High Guard fleet assigned to guard the opening of the Route of Ages was attacked by a formation of Pyrian Torchships, with the fleet overwhelmed they passed through. We don't know what they want but it may be connected to the Magog."_

"Understood," Rhade gestured to Rommie to cut the connection, turning to her he continued. "I want you to jam any transmission the _Australe _makes to the rest of your fleet and dig up anything you can find on 'Captain Horatio Delano', something about him didn't seem right."

Rhade turned and once more left command leaving Rommie and Harper puzzled.

* * *

"Okay, Dr Jackson, exactly why don't I want to be involved in what Adria's doing?" Dylan kept one of his hands hovering over the force lance.

"Well, long story short, she's a religious crusader who will burn anyone who refuses to follow her to death." Daniel looked apologetically at Dylan. "I was able to bluff my way into her confidence in able to build a weapon to stop their gods."

"You're saying their gods are real?" Doyle looked puzzled, but she'd caught on with Dylan's distrust.

"Well not exactly, they're ascended beings," Daniel said it as though it explained everything.

"And ascended beings are?" Dylan was getting worried were this was heading.

"Well, they're like the Ancients, they reached a stage in their physical evolution were they could shed their bodies and live as energy on another plane of existence," Daniel's hands wildly moved as he talked showing his passion for the subject.

"Okay, so energy beings upon which you're planning genocide," Dylan gave Daniel an icy glare.

"_Dylan, you need to get up here,"_

Dylan shared a look with Doyle; that spoke specifically _keep him her._

Moving out of the room he jogged up to the command deck to find the rest of his command crew already there.

"Rommie, what is it?" Dylan asked as he took his station in front of the deck.

"Well, just under a minute ago we received this transmission from the _Pillars of Hercules," _Rommie pressed a few controls bring up the image of a man none of them ever wanted to see again.

"_Hello, Captain, or is it Admiral now. Admiral Hunt, you destroyed us, we Collectors have a duty to protect the knowledge of the Vedrans and the old Commonwealth, you destroyed us, now we will have our revenge."_

The image of Pish Tryan faded from the screen.

"Well, I guess that's my que," it was _Hercules' _avatar that had come up behind Dylan before lashing out sending Dylan flying across the room.


	4. The Collector Shambles

Rhade was the first to react, drawing his force lance and firing off a set of plasma bolts at the avatar rather than the effector smart bullets typically used, while they were more effective they were insufficient to stop the advancing android reaching out with his right arm he choked Rhade lifting him off the floor.

"I think it's time you picked on someone your own size," Rommie advanced kicking _Hercules _square in the chest forcing him to drop Rhade as he crashed into one of the control consoles. "Harper, get the others out of here, I'll hold _Hercules _off."

Harper dimly nodded as he helped Dylan up while Rhade and the others speed out of the room, _Hercules _slowly got up from the floor, looking between the crew and Rommie he seemingly made a choice.

He leapt up through the air using his right arm to karate chop, Rommie blocked it with her left arm while bringing her right to meet _Hercules' _left, before he could react she kicked him back once more, however this time _Hercules _was ready and was only shoved back a few feet. Rommie crouched low ready to strike again.

_Hercules _stopped once more to consider his attack before sweeping out with hisleft leg to sweep her off her feet, however anticipating the attack Rommie summersaulted over him before sending two swift kicks to his kneecaps, instead of falling forward _Hercules _rolled in a ball to the slip-stream navigation section turning to face Rommie he tried to kick her, Rommie took the hit and collided with the first officers station, smashing straight through. While she recovered _Hercules _picked her up and threw her once more across the deck, this time Rommie was ready and rolled onto her feet upon landing, she immediately swung around and punched _Hercules _in the chest causing him to double over, as he recovered she slammed the side of her hand into the joint between his neck and his head and then twisted it clean off, without control stimulus the android body fell to the ground neutralised.

* * *

Pish stood on the control deck on the _Pillars of Hercules _as he watched the end of the video feed from the ships avatar.

"Well, that was disappointing," Pish turned to one of the few officers loyal to the collectors on fire control. "Fire all missile batteries at the _Andromeda."_

Pish smiled as he saw all 180 missile launchers fire, 1,440 direct offensive missiles left the tubes heading towards the _Andromeda, _soon Dylan Hunt would be dead and the collectors would use their knowledge to take control of the Commonwealth from the shadows.

* * *

Rommie looked up from the disabled android body at the cacophony of bleeps from the sensors indicating incoming missiles, her core AI had already brought all of the Point Defence Lasers online and was picking some of the missiles off at a distance, although they moved at 95 PSL the lasers fired at the speed of light rendering allowing for an easier intercept rate, that still let a lot of them through.

"_Code black, battle stations, officers to command,"_

Rommie took her station, only noticing when Harper arrived at her side.

"See you dealt with him, that's my Rommie," Harper looked aside as Rommie smirked back at him.

"Defensive missiles, all batteries, Beka bring us to within four light seconds of the _Hercules,"_ Dylan looked at the sensors and allowed a smile _Andromeda _was able to take out most of the incoming missiles, the deck shook and sparks came from the ceiling, _well most of them._

_Andromeda _bucked and rolled in a 'crazy Ivan' manoeuvre, about 90% of the missiles had been taken down while a further 5% were evaded; the remaining 72 missiles that hit caused relatively minor damage.

The _Triangulum Australe _moved out of the way, in part due to its damage from the battle with the Pyrians while the other destroyers launched defensive missile to lend the _Andromeda _cover. The _Fires of Orion _moved into firing position.

"_Orion, _hold your fire," Dylan sent to the fellow destroyer.

The ships AI appeared on the main screen.

"_Sir?" Orion _seemed confused.

"They're only shooting at us, give us cover and stay back," Dylan cut the transmission and turned to Rhade. "As soon as they're in range fire the AP canons to disable them.

The _Andromeda _rolled towards the _Hercules_, Pish backed off in fear as green bursts of anti-matter speed out at 99 PSL, Rhade was able to precision target the ships missile batteries, while the _Hercules _as a _Siege Perilous _class cruiser had the capabilities to unleash a massive missile salvo, it made that ability due to minimising its close defence.

The green mass of anti-protons passed straight through the cold-plasma armour and instantly reacted with the fullerene mesh exploding into the missile tubes, not destroying them but clogging them, so any missile launch would cause a detonation inside the ship.

* * *

Pish gripped the console beneath his hands till his knuckles turned white.

"_Hercules, _get ready to repel boarders," Pish drew his force lance ready to fight his way off the ship.

* * *

"Doyle, get up here," Dylan took his hand off of the ship-wide transmitter. "Rhade, Beka keep an eye on Dr Jackson, this is between me and Pish."

Dylan started to walk off of the deck before he was stopped by the objections of his command crew.

"You can't go over on your own, we don't know how many Collectors are on that ship, for all we know the entire crew could be on Pish's side, we've seen that the AI was," Rommie faced him with a completely reasoned face.

"Yeah boss, Rommie's right, you need some support over there, Pish may have had more up 'there', than Paroo, but not much," Harper was still pointing at his forehead as he finished.

"What about the _Hercules _himself, the AI may not take too kindly to being boarded given his earlier attack on us." It was Rhade now who was complaining.

"That's why he's taking Doyle?" Beka asked rhetorically, already guessing the answer.

Dylan nodded.

"Sir, I'm coming with you," Rhade's tone didn't broker any argument.

"Alright, _Andromeda _keep an eye on Jackson, if he tries anything dial up the gravity till he falls down." Dylan once more turned to the door. "Rhade, you're with me, Beka you have command."

As Dylan and Rhade reached the door Doyle arrived from the opposite direction, Dylan turned to Rhade and told him to get two slip-fighters ready as he turned to talk to Doyle.

* * *

Adria walked once more onto her ships command deck.

"Has Admiral Hunt sent a transmission back since they brought Daniel on board?" Adria was worried, whenever she looked at that ship now she felt a wave of fear and hatred pass through her, the only thing that could contain it was the mere thought that if she fired she might kill Daniel.

"Madame Orici, our other ship," Adria followed the soldiers direction to see the final Ori ship in the galaxy to drop out of hyperspace.

"Tell them to come up beside us and under no circumstanced to fire on the other ships here," Adria looked out as two fighters left Hunt's flagship, the _Andromeda, _heading towards the smaller destroyer that had fired on them earlier.

* * *

"So, you want me to take control of the _Hercules _AI?" Doyle sat behind Dylan in their slip-fighter still trying to grasp what Dylan was asking of her.

"Look, I know it's not ideal, it's just that I don't trust _Hercules _after that little display on the _Andromeda, _I've got Harper working on extracting the data from the android. Normally I'd ask Rommie to take over on the _Andromeda, _and the only other AI in the fleet I trust is Ryan, and I need him on the _Achilles. _So that leaves you," Dylan did sound apologetic. "Look, it's only temporary, trust me."

"_I do," _Dylan looked back to see Doyle smiling at him.

"_You two might want to stop socialising, we're here,"_ Rhade said over the comms as they neared the single entrance into the DSXs hanger bay.

"Sorry, _Lieutenant Commander, _we're coming in now." Dylan said as he threaded the fighter through the PDL fire from the _Hercules. _"Rommie, are we still covered by the ECM."

"_Yes sir, you are blurred to the Hercules' sensors, good luck."_

"Thank Rommie you'll hear back from us soon, Hunt out." Dylan signed off as he sent a coded data burst to the hanger door.

* * *

"Rommie, see how Harper's doing," Beka looked back out of the viewscreen as Rommie left the deck.

Rommie could have check on Harper through the internal systems, but the truth be told she wanted to see him in person, and she knew Beka wanted a moment alone.

When Rommie reached the door she checked that Harper was descent before opening and walking in, she walked into the room to find _Hercules' _head in pieces scattered across the table.

"Anything yet Harper?" Rommie strolled up to Harper, standing in front of him.

"Hey Rom-doll," Harper smiled goofily at her before looking back down at the pieces of circuitry that once made up _Hercules' _head. "From what I've found hidden inside the _Hercules _programing was a slave driver which bound the _Hercules _to obey one corrupt collector Pish Tryan. So far I haven't found a way to disengage it from the matrix, I'm sorry Rommie, there doesn't seem to be anything to do other than erase him."

"It's okay Harper I know you tried your best," Rommie reached out putting her right hand on his shoulder. "There's only so much you can do when the people who made that program had access to a good portion of the database from the All Systems University."

"Yeah I know that Rom-doll, I just want to keep you safe," Harper tried to avert his eyes from her as he blushed a little.

"I know," Rommie smiled as she removed her hand before moving to the other side of the table beside Harper. "Maybe you should download parts of my database that could help Doyle control the _Hercules."_

Harper nodded in response.

"Yeah, that's probably a good idea,"

Rommie smiled as she leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. "Thank you for trying _Seamus,"_

Harper's hand blindly moved to the spot where Rommie's lips had just been as his eyes followed her out. Starting to smile he made his way to the main console to access the _Siege Perilous _Destroyer data.

* * *

Sam was fast asleep at her desk inside the labs at the SGC, Cameron Mitchell turned the corner and looked in, in his right hand was a brown folder.

"Sam?" Cam knocked on the door before walking towards her, he lightly shacked Sam's shoulder waking her.

"Cam," she said groggily as she got up. "What's going on, have we got a lead on Daniel?"

Cam shook his head. "No, sorry." Cam bit his lip. "A Tok'ra ship was taking a shipment of ammonium phosphate to the jaffa nation was attacked, we initially thought it was an Ori attack, however after locating the black box we found this."

Opening the file Sam saw an image of a glowing blue sphere made of physical materials with a set of arcing pylons from the back with two from the top leading to a single pylon on the bottom and two at each side.

"Do we know who it is?" Sam looked up at Mitchell.

"No, but the Tok'ra and Jaffa need to find out and they don't have any ships in the area and the air force wants to test that new ZeePM on-board, so they're sending the _Odyssey."_

"What about Daniel?" Sam was still concerned for the life of her friend.

"For now the search has been called off," Cam patted her shoulder as he left to get ready.

* * *

Dylan, Doyle and Rhade made their way through the _Hercules' _maintenance tubes after Rhade had blinded the internal sensors.

"Alright, here's the plan; Rhade, get to slip-stream core and set an overload in the exotic matter pulsar to destroy the ship if you don't hear back from me while Doyle and I will go to command where we'll attach this," Dylan pulled out the Drago-Kazov AI eraser. "If that doesn't work there are other measures in place from the old Commonwealth to disengage an AI when necessary, Doyle leave Pish to me, we have unfinished business."

Rhade nodded heading down the crawl ways towards the ships innards.

"Dylan, what will you do with Pish?" Doyle looked Dylan straight in the eyes trying to ascertain his intentions.

"I'm going to show him what Argosy Special Operations do with threats to the Commonwealth," Dylan looked Doyle straight back in the eye. "The High Guard and the Commonwealth is my life, I'll do all I can to protect it."

"Dylan, you're not taking about protecting it, you're talking about murder plain and simple," Doyle leant forward. "What does killing Pish accomplish in the long run, he's beaten and he knows it, the only thing he can do is drag you down with him, is you die the Commonwealth is as good as dead."

Dylan smiled.

"Thank you,"

"For what?" Doyle cocked her head to the side still looking Dylan in the eye.

"For pulling me back from the brink," Dylan nodded at her. "We'll try to subdue him if possible; if not then killing is the final option."

Doyle nodded as well in agreement as they made their way to command.

* * *

The _Odyssey _came out of hyperspace with a jolt on the far side of a planet; Sam sat in the centre chair, the sensors could just about see the unknown ship in a high orbit, the Asgard sensors acted through subspace so where not limited by the speed of light, that gave them real time telemetry

"What are they doing?" Sam turned to Marks as he examined the reports.

"They're holding position," Marks frowned. "They're firing!"

"What, they're on the other side of the plane-" the bridge bucked to the side as lights failed and sparks fell from conduits, acrid smoke began to fill the room.

"What the hell did they hit us with?" Cam staggered back up behind Sam.

"Unknown, but whatever they were they hit us at 95% of the speed of light," Marks pressed a few keys. "They're closing in!"

"Evasive now!" Sam yelled gripping her seat arms.

"It's not working; it's as if our mass has drastically increased," Marks couldn't seem to get enough thrust even though the engines were at 125%.

"Sam, they're firing," Cam looked out of the window as two beams of continuous plasma crossed the gap, while by Commonwealth standards the beams were slow at 75 PSL that speed was still massive when compared to that of anything the Asgard designed shields were designed to take. As the two blasts collided the _Odyssey's _shields flared blue as energy coursed back. The hit brought the entirety of the momentum of the plasma into the ship, as the shields collapsed the AG mass packets that had latched on to them were set free, the instant reduction is mass caused the ship to rocket forward with the momentum from the engines before spinning on its axis with the momentum from the plasma.

The back of the star map exploded showing glass across the deck as the artificial gravity failed Sam was sent flying from her seat the lights failed as the ships systems failed in a cascade till it was dead in the water.

* * *

"Ready?" Dylan had both of his force lances ready in hand at their normal length.

Doyle nodded in turn, her own force lance ready standing at the ready Doyle overrode the door controls and the two burst onto the _Hercules' _command deck, without waiting for a beat the opened fire with electrical discharges at sufficient voltage to stun the crew but not sufficient enough to drain the lances of their power.

The skeleton crew of collectors was easily dealt with by the two experienced high guard officers. Dylan surveyed the area, but couldn't see Pish amongst the unconscious; however all of the present crew wore collector insignia.

"_Nicely done Admiral Hunt, it's a shame I'll have to kill you" Hercules _had appeared on the main screen, the High Guard uniform was gone replaced by an outfit similar to Pish's.

"Yeah well, you won't get the chance," Dylan rushed forward to the _Hercules' _slip-stream pilot chair as the local AG field increased crashing him down to the ground, the Drago-Kazov eraser falling to the ground in front of him, Dylan strained to bring at least one of his force lances up, however the effort was too much, even as a heavy worlder.

"Hey, you want him you have to get through me," Doyle's tone brokered no argument as she interfaced with the AI core.

Doyle's body jolted as her consciousness was pulled into the VR core, she found herself in an environment identical to the _Andromeda's _VR matrix, before she could make any action _Hercules _appeared in data form towering above her.

"_What are you doing here, what do you want?" Hercules _looked pissed, his eyes blazed with anger. _"Why do you persist in helping Hunt? Why protect him?"_

* * *

Harper stood at the right hand station on the command deck beside Rommie as they observed Doyle's data feed.

"She's in," Harper said as he inputted a series of commands.

"Rhade, go." Rommie didn't waste a beat following Harper's report.

"_Rhade, go."_

Telemachus immediately burst out of the conduit and fired on the Collectors present with smart bullets rather than stunning them. After clearing the area he ran to the controls by the ships exotic matter pulsar, pulling a data chip out of his pocket he swiftly placed it into the reader.

* * *

"Okay, Rhade got it in, our virus code name, _Collectors go away and stop bothering us, _is inside the _Hercules_ AI." Harper said with a flourish as he watched the virus slowly spread through the various sub-systems.

"You know Harper, sometimes I really am glad that we're on the same team," Harper turned to see Rommie smiling at him, Harper found himself smiling back, not one of his grins, but a genuine smile, Harper was sure he saw something in her eyes that time.

* * *

_Hercules _felt pain rip through his consciousness, the image of Doye faded as the VR matrix dissolved around her. Doyle smiled as she reached out through the conduits, what remained of _Hercules _dissolved around her as the ships circuits pledged allegiance to her.

Dylan stained against the high gravity, even ready for it the high level of g's was becoming too much, just before Dylan blacked out the gravity stopped and he saw Doyle's long blond hair pool on his shoulder as he was pulled up.

"You okay?" Doyle spoke gently as she helped Dylan into the control seat.

"Yeah I'm fine," Dylan smiled. "Next time we need a better plan."

"_All systems online, full purge of rogue AI in progress."_

Dylan turned to see the image of Doyle appear on the screen the image of the _Hercules _rotating behind her, Dylan look aside to see Doyle's head tilted to the side with her eyes closed.

"Okay that's going to take some getting used to," Dylan watched as she tilted her head.

Doyle smiled back.

"You're not the one whose consciousness is being split between a computer core and a holographic interface." She smiled again. "I'll just see how Rhade's doing."


	5. Prelude to War

Sam pulled herself up from the wreckage of the _Odyssey's _command chair, the taste of blood in her mouth, she saw Marks righting himself on his console.

"Colonel, we're receiving a hail from the enemy ship," Marks spat blood on his console, Sam had a hard time focusing as the only light came from sparking leads and low level emergency lighting.

"Put it up," Sam gasped in pain as she felt one of her ribs, it was broken.

On the remaining screen a green mist appeared, and inside the mist a series of floating squid like creatures floated.

"_From the beginning what are the radical isotopes?"_

Sam shared a look with Marks before an alarm started to go off.

"Marks, what is it?" Sam leaned heavily on the edge of Marks console.

"They've downloaded a virus right passed our firewalls, I keep trying to stop it but…" Marks stopped as the internal ship wide communications channel.

"_From the beginning what are the radical isotopes?"_

* * *

Adria's eyes rolled back as she felt her fellow Ori reach into her.

_Attack Earth, abandon the High Guard fleet and Dr Jackson._

While her first reaction was to ignore her orders she knew full well what would happen if she tried to resist a direct order from her masters, she knew what had happened to the jaffa Gerak when he'd cured the humans of the plague.

"Tell our other ship to engage the _Andromeda_ so that we can escape, if they can get away they're to follow us to the edge of Earth's solar system," Adria went up to the bridge ready to make a run for it.

The second Ori ship moved so that its plasma canon faced the _Andromeda, _before anyone on board could hail them the Ori ship opened fire, the orange burst of plasma headed straight into _Andromeda's _hull.

* * *

As _Andromeda _took the hit the momentum drove them backwards, sparks fell from the ceiling, Beka moved to take an evasive manoeuvre before the console in front of exploded throwing her back into the floor.

Harper took hold of Rommie's shoulders as she righted her AG fields, once the gravity was back to normal he let go and walked around Rommie's station.

"Rommie, is there a negative energy bomb on board?" Harper's eyes gleamed with an idea.

"Yes, we do," Rommie smirked as she realized what Harper was thinking. "Loading missile tube fifteen."

"Right, er defensive missiles, all tubes except fifteen, fire," Harper wasn't sure that was the right thing to do, but it was what he thought Dylan would say.

The Ori ship fired two more pulses, a stream of green kinetic kill missiles speed into the path, while the missiles weren't able to exhaust the energy of the plasma as it headed towards the _Andromeda _it was able to dissipate enough energy to reduce the damage rendered.

"Rommie, evasive manoeuvres, ready the NE bomb for launch, fire as soon as we can,"

* * *

"_Dylan, the Andromeda," _Dylan looked up following the 'on-screen' Doyle's prompting to see one of the Ori ships firing on the _Andromeda _while the other made a break for it while under fire from the _Fires of Orion, Resolution of Hector _and the_ Wrath of Achilles, _however High Guard destroyers had yet to unleash a full salvo of their missiles and as such the Ori ship's shields were holding.

"Doyle, get the _Triangulum Australe, _up now," Dylan crossed to stand at the front of the bridge all thoughts of Pish gone.

The centre screen resolved to show Captain Delano.

"Captain, this is Admiral Hunt, you are hereby ordered to reinforce the _Andromeda-" _but before Dylan could continue Doyle cut him off.

"Dylan, the _Andromeda _just launched a missile ladled as a Negative Energy Bomb," Doyle's questioning look made it clear that she had no idea exactly what the weapon did.

"Captain, new orders, stop the other Ori ship,"

"_Aye sir, moving to intercept."_

* * *

Harper had examined the sensor readings from the _Hercules' _battle and had determined that the missiles were destroyed on contact with the energy shields and that it was the kinetic motion that gave the bigger punch. Knowing this he ordered Rommie to detonate the NE bomb just a split second before it hit the Ori shields.

"Detonating now," Rommie looked up from her panel as the missile exploded.

Flashing brighter than a sun the bubble of light that formed the Ori shields was only visible for a few moments before being outshone by the brilliance of the warheads detonation.

* * *

Adria looked back through the sensors as her only other ship was engulfed by the powerful explosion, it was all up to her now, if her ship was destroyed it was all over, and speaking of which the smaller escort ships for the _Andromeda _had not yet opened up with the full force of their weapons, a blessing. Alarms began to chime, the ships shields were down to 60%, suddenly she was shot forward, shields were now at 50%.

The _Triangulum Australe _vectored towards the Ori ship at 10 PSL, her missile launchers were rigged for continuous fire of her kinetic kill missiles, 240 missiles for every second, each barrage brought down 10% of the Ori shields, as Adria ran her shields got closer and closer to failing.

Adria had a death grip on her control chair, her shields were about to collapse, she just needed another second, before she could enter hyperspace, 30%... 20%... 10%... 0% and she entered hyperspace just before the last salvo hit her.

* * *

"_From the beginning what are the radical isotopes?"_

The squid like creatures had continued to ask that question for a full hour every five minutes till the entire crew was once more conscious; so far they'd all failed to understand the question.

"Is everyone up?" Sam stood beside Cam and Marks inside one of the ruined briefing rooms on the _Odyssey._

"Yep, we've got everyone ready for battle, the ship though is another matter," Cam trailed off as the lights flickered.

* * *

Dylan arrived on the _Andromeda's _command deck to see the slip-console under repair by two androids while Rommie and Harper sat on the plating between the two stations; they seemed to be deep in conversation.

"They do that a lot," Dylan spun round to see Trance behind him.

"Yeah, I've noticed," Dylan looked at them smiling. "I knew they were a good team, anyway how's Beka doing?"

"She'll be fine, but Dr Jackson wants to speak with you, I've kept Tomin under sedation, but we can't keep him out forever," Trance looked at him, in a way that showed that she expected an immediate response.

"Well, er okay, we'll deal with Tomin later, I go and see Dr Jackson now," as Dylan finished Trance instantly tesseracted away, disappearing in a flash of orange light. "I hate it when she does that."

Dylan nodded to himself as he walked down the corridors to the nearest ladder, upon which he mounted before activating his AG harness and sliding down.

* * *

The _Millennial Rites, _Tri-Lorn's flagship along with its escort, the _Magellan Melrow, _came out of slip-stream to meet a fleet of Nietzschean warships, specifically the Drago-Kazov and Kenja prides.

"This is Tri-Lorn to Nietzschean ships, please state your business in orbit of Tarazed," Tri-Lorn stood once more in the commanding officers station on his flagship.

"_This is Gaheris Telan, Alpha of the Drago-Kazov pride, we wish to speak regarding a number of attacks on our planets, we believe them to be committed by the remains of the Genites." _ The burly Nietzschean said leaning on his arms so his Bone blades were visible.

"Yes and…" Tri-Lorn leant on his arms too, focusing on the alpha.

"_We intend to launch a military strike to wipe them out," _The alpha's face didn't give anything away.

"And you're fleet is here because?" Tri-Lorn had already guessed where this was going.

"_We would like High Guard support in this endeavour," _The alpha clearly had to grate out his appeal for help.

Tri-Lorn smiled.

"Very well, send over all the data on the target," Tri-Lorn turned to the ships avatar. "_Millennial, _send a courier to Sinti, tell them to bring the _Salient Debate _and _Twelve Centuries_ combat ready for rendezvous. Alpha Telan we will use this position as a staging area for a Commonwealth fleet in order to hunt down our enemy."

"Triumvirate?" _Millennial's _avatar started just started after the Nietzschean alpha disappeared from the main screen. "A Pyrian stealth-cruiser has just come out of slip-stream behind us, they're hailing us."

"Put them up," Tri-Lorn was worried. "And tell the _Melrow _to ready missiles and ready our own."

On the screen the standard image of green gases formed, a trio of Pyrians were there floating in the gases.

"_We apologise for the unfortunate attack on your ship, however the lives lost were sacrificed destroying the servants of the Abyss,"_

Before Lorn could answer the Pyrians disappeared from the screen and the stealth-cruiser re-entered slip-stream.

* * *

Dylan prepared himself for the worst as he entered Dr Jackson's guest quarters; he took a deep breath before face the pasty scared archaeologist.

"What do you want exactly Doctor?" Dylan's hand never wavered from his force lance.

"Look I'm sorry Admiral Hunt, but I need your help," in any other circumstance Daniel's pleading face would look desperate if it wasn't covered in scars. "That last Ori ship, Adria's going to attack Earth, you can stop her, I saw you destroy her other ship."

"It's not that I don't want to help, but it's not really my business," Dylan swallowed. "Have you ever heard of the Abyss?"

Daniel's eyebrows crinkled and his eyes widened in shock.

* * *

"So what now?" Harper looked across to Rommie beside him. "Do we go after a ship full of religious fanatics or do we try to track down the Magog or go after Pish?"

"Well, we do whatever Dylan asks us to do, remember Harper we're not on our own we have a fleet with us," Rommie looked aside into his eyes.

"Yeah, but can we trust them?"

"I trust Ryan, he came through for us in Tartarus, we can count on Doyle and based on past experience Captain Shohashi can be trusted as she went up against her own Pride after the _Crimson _was destroyed, the only unknown is Captain Delano."

"You haven't found anything on him?" Harper was more than a little shocked that Rommie hadn't been able to dig up anything on the insubordinate officer.

"No, his past has been hidden very well,"

"I just wish we hadn't destroyed that Ori ship, I'd have liked to have a look at their shields," Harper looked sadly out at the image of the destroyed Ori ship.

"Maybe it's for the best," at Harper's questioning look Rommie continued. "We've seen how the people here are dependent on their shield technology, its better to be ready and prepared to deal with damage, and don't ever question what happened. Harper… Seamus, you did good."

"Thanks Rommie," Harper looked down as he started to blush.

Rommie smiled as she wrapped one of her arms around Harper.

* * *

The _Fenrir _came out of the slip-stream to find a Pyrian Torchship dwarfing a far smaller ship.

"This is Captain Perrin of the High Guard ship _Fenrir, _to Pyrian vessel; please explain your purpose here," Perrin turned to the _Fenrir _AI, get the other ship on the line and translate my speech. "This is Captain Perrin of the Systems Commonwealth High Guard ship _Fenrir _to unidentified vessel, do you require assistance?"

On one of the screens an image of an injured blond woman appeared. "_This is Lieutenant Colonel Carter, commanding officer of the Earth ship Odyssey; any assistance you could offer would be most appreciated Captain Perrin."_

Perrin nodded. "We'll see what we can do, Perrin out." As Colonel Carter disappeared Perrin turned back to _Fenrir. _"Send a courier to Admiral Hunt, we need back up."

* * *

"Okay, here's the plan," Dylan started at the assembled crews and captains. "The _Andromeda _and _Resolution of Hector _will move to support the human ship against the Pyrians, before moving to take out the Ori ship en route to the Earth. The _Fires of Orion, Wrath of Achilles _and _Triangulum Australe _will remain here to complete repairs. Now, Beka Valentine has been temporarily assigned to command the _Pillars of Hercules _which along with the _Columbus _and the _Eightfold Path_ will hunt down Pish for trial, the Lancers will also remain her pending a detachment for ground troops. Any questions?"

Captain Delano raised his hand. "Who will be in charge of the fleet here?"

"Captain Ryan will be," Dylan said in a slow manner.

"But he's an AI…"

"And what's your point?" Dylan said rather angrily. "He's an officer just like you with three hundred years' experience, he's in charge, if you've got a problem with that there's a nice room in my brig. Am I clear?"

"Yes sir," Delano looked down, his eyes fuming.

"Good, is that's everything, dismissed," Dylan walked out.

* * *

"Good luck Boss," Harper leant forward to give Beka a hug.

"Don't suppose I could convince you to come aboard the _Hercules?" _ Beka smiled at him.

"Yeah, no sorry boss, I needed here," Harper stepped back to stand with Rommie.

"How 'bout you Rev?" Beka turned hopefully to her old friend.

"My apologies old friend, but when the Divine shows us the Way we must follow," Rev leant forward and hugged Beka as well before folding his hands in his robes.

"Good luck Beka," Dylan stepped forward and shook her hand. "You'll be fine, just promise me you'll find Pish and make him pay."

"Count on it," with the last goodbye Beka turned into the hanger to enter the _Eurika Maru._

* * *

The _Magellan Melrow, Salient Debate _and _Twelve Centuries _stood in formation with the Drago-Kavov fleet, they moved as one as the _Millennial Rites _came out of slip-stream to join as the fleet command ship. Tri-Lorn walked onto his command deck followed by Gaheris Talen.

"Well, I'm surprised you'd be here yourself Triumvirate," Talen looked aside at the proud figure of the most popular person beside Admiral Hunt.

"The Genites don't just want to wipe out your people, they want to destroy all genetically enhanced life, and my paternal grandparents were heavy worlders," Lorn turned and smiled humorously at the Nietzschean. "They Genites didn't distinguish, when they came for us they didn't just kill those who had been genetically enhanced, they wanted to make an example our colony for harbouring them, I was ten at the time, we barely got away, and they were never the same again. I hate those _'einsatzgruppen' _just as much as you do. If we can take those bastards out, I'm going to be here."

"Thank you," Talen said as he took an observers position beside the Triumvirate.

"What for?" Tri-Lorn looked once more to Talen before the 'ping' from the active sensors as the sensor drones picked up the Genite ships. "Report?"

"Detecting upon fifty Genite Seraphim carriers fully deployed along with ground installations, they are moving to intercept our sensor drones."

"Good, launch the slipfighters and tell them to activate the FMS," Tri-Lorn.

Watching the sensor feed Lorn saw the image of five Glorious Heritage class ships appeared.

"Genite ships are out of formation,"

"Tell the fleet to engage,"

* * *

The _Andromeda _and _Resolution of Hector _came out of slipstream to find the _Fenrir_, a Pyrian Torchship and a third unknown vessel.

"Rommie, get a full sensor sweep on the unknown ship," Dylan moved away from the slip-stream console to stand in front of the view screen. "Hail the Pyrians."

The centre screen changed to show boiling green gases and a single floating Pyrian.

"This is Admiral Hunt, commander of the High Guard fleet, please explain your purpose here," Dylan awaited a response.

"_The enemy is still at large, the Commonwealth can't be trusted, you are compromised." _

The Pyrian immediately cut the link.

"Dylan, they're firing!" Rommie called out as a barrage of AG mass packets impacted over her hull.

"Bring us about, 'crazy Ivan', defensive missiles all tubes, lock on target with AP canons and launch combat drones." Dylan walked over to Rhade at the first officer's station. "Scramble fighters."

* * *

The _Resolution _followed suit, taking evasive while firing off a volley of offensive missiles towards the similarly designed ship. The Pyrian ship however was larger and had more firepower as a number of AG mass packets hit the _Resolution _it lost its rotational control and begun to spin on its axis, however it didn't stop firing, smart missiles leapt forth towards the Torchship, evading some of the defensive fire and ripping through layers of ablative armour with their kinetic energy.

The Torchship ignored the _Resolution, _it wasn't the greatest threat present, the Torchship launched all of the AG mass packets in its missile tubes towards the _Andromeda. _In response _Andromeda's _slip-fighters ran intercept at a range of a quarter of a light second and _Andromeda's _PDLs and defensive missiles took out the stragglers. Rolling on her axis the _Andromeda _returned the Pyrian attack in kind, launching a full barrage of six hundred and forty direct offensive missiles fled her tubes, all triangulating on the Torchship, however the Pyrians had been a spacefaring culture for as long as the Vedrans and their ships projected that having the most powerful fleet in the known worlds, thus for once the _Andromeda _was evenly matched, the Torchship could match her blow for blow.

* * *

Tri-Lorn gripped the console as another blast hit the _Millennial _amidships, while the Genites would like people to think that they'd had three hundred years on High Guard ships, but the truth was they had put more effort into stealth tech.

"What's the status of the fleet?" Tri-Lorn looked to _Millennial._

"The _Salient Debate _and _Magellan Melrow _are boxed in by Genite ships, the Drago-Kazov fleet is under heavy assault, the _Twelve Centuries _is moving to assist," _Millennials _face creased. "More ships are entering the system; Collector ships, five light cruisers, they are moving to engage us."

In space five of the distinctive light cruisers utilised by the Collectors came into optimum range and opened fire with missiles and AP canons while another five arrived to draw off the _Twelve Centuries._

While the Collector ships were no way near as powerful as the High Guard counterparts they were able to even the odds between the Commonwealth fleet and the Genites to muddy the waters.

Sparks flew from overloading conduits on the bridge of the _Millennial, _Tri-Lorn bit his lip as he held onto the console with all his effort.

"Fire on the nearest Collector ship, all missile and AP canons, fire till it's gone!" Tri-Lorn looked at the sensor feed.

From the _Millennial Rites _over two hundred missiles and dozens of blasts of Anti-Protons ripped into the Collector cruiser setting off hundreds of secondary explosions as the ship was utterly destroyed, however the other ships didn't stop, in fact they intensified the attack leaving the Commonwealth fleet overwhelmed.

* * *

In high Earth orbit the last of the Ori ships arrived, staying out of drone range Adria decided to wait to attack the planet. Soon the Tau'ri would fall, soon.


End file.
